Kingsdale - positive experiences pls

Mine was there on a full music scholarship and was very happy for 5 years. Only not there for 6th form because she went to a specialist music college, but still sees her friends from KFS.

She's very SEN - ADHD and severely dyslexic. Has stellar grades in some subjects and everything she needs for anything she wants to do in future in other. SEND is about as useless as my friends in other schools found theirs. We found them kind and nurturing but not much help for SPaG. Very on it with things like Access Arrangements for exams though. College have been even less useful on the SEN front.

School is huge, but year groups don't mix so it was like a school of 450 in practice. Huge numbers of options, extra curriculars and flexibility because of the size.

Staff were mainly great.

We had a lot of options because of music places, and I would happily make the exact same choice if we were back in Y6 today.

Music department was amazing. Cannot fault them at all. And they gave DD huge support - went well above and beyond.

Both my kids are currently at Kingsdale and both have had a very positive experience. No SEND or scholarship but both doing well academically and size of school feels like a benefit rather than a downside. Range of subjects has been fantastic, from year 7, at GCSE and now sixth form. There are many imperfections, like with any school, but I think Kingsdale get a lot of things right. Tonnes of extra curricular, great trips, and I personally have been impressed with how they track progress and manage gcse prep - options chosen a year early which gives more time in year 11 for exam technique and revision, plus they do 1 gcse in year 10. This system has worked very well for us. Overall, but especially at sixth form, I’ve found the school to be ambitious for the kids - aiming high feels like the norm, with a very ‘can do’ growth mindset approach, as far as I can tell.

Have a look at my previous posts and DM me if you want more details but in summary-

Son is full music and maths scholar at Kingsdale. He is also SEN (adhd with autistic traits). He got offered places at various private schools including Alleyns but ultimately we chose Kingsdale and so far (six weeks in) have been v impressed.

In particular, the size has allowed him to find other children like him, music provision is outstanding, class sizes are small, there are a private school-level number of extra curricular clubs and the senior leadership team is very impressive.

On SEN, it’s complicated. The SEN lead is not particularly impressive (a teacher who seems to be doing SEN as a side gig) but they have an absolutely brilliant SEN consultant, Charlotte Francis Finch, who is working there 3 days a week and is genuinely the best SEN advocate we’ve come across in state or private (and one of the reasons we chose the school - in contrast the Alleyns SEN lead talked to us about ‘naughty SEN kids’).

In terms of negative comments on Mumsnet I completely empathise; we were similarly nervous about them. What you quickly realised is the school is massively oversubscribed and there is a lot of bitterness from those whose kids either don’t get a music/sports scholarship or get in on the lottery. Added to this is a sense (partially true I think) that Kingsdale is using the scholarships to game the system and attract more middle class families. In my experience that’s where most of the negativity comes from. I’m on a huge WhatsApp group of 300+ Year 7 parents and most of them seem v happy with Kingsdale so far.

Hope this helps.

PS it is a huge achievement to get a full music scholarship as it is so competitive. Your son should be super proud.

We have two children there. Oldest got a music scholarship in Y9, both have a Maths scholarship and youngest has an Arts scholarship.

The music one is amazing, one free lesson a week, and was in two ensembles last year. Music concerts are incredible - so much opportunity to join large bands, choirs, ensembles.

One note I would say is a full music scholarship doesn't guarentee entrance - I think if you are in the top % you are fairly sure. We know of someone on a full music scholarship who didn't get in (but was then offered a place over summer which they took).

I didn't think our oldest would like it due to the size but he has loved it. Our youngest who loves art, which was almost mocked by some at his primary, it's a game changer. Art at the front as you walk it - it's not some token sideshow, it's front and centre, and he's found lots of people who also love it which has been brilliant for him.

As others have said, the size of the school has been a positive as there is so much opportunity for subjects to study (4 languages offered, 4 art subjects, theatre, classic civilisation, music etc) and so many extra curricular clubs it allows you to 'find your tribe'.

Y7s finish earlier with Y11s, and have breaktimes only with this group with is great and reduces the chances of bullying from older groups. They basically never have lunch with a group directly one year younger or older which also means more space during lunch.

Like all schools, not everything is perfect, the admin could certainly be better at times and some kids will be unhappy and some children with leave as with all schools. A lof of the nagativity you see online comes from parents who don't have children there so in terms of actual experience it can be hard to filter who has direct epxerience, and complaints about the admissions process etc which is a seperate discussion.

Good luck - for a state school the music is really is an amazing offering.

Hello, I'm in a similar position in that my child has got a half sports scholarship (know this has less of an impact on their admission chances compared to a full scholarship!).

However I'm looking at Kingsdale's results over the last few years and they seem to be on a bit of a downward trend: attainment 8 was 66.7 in 23-24, 59.9 in 24-25 and is now 56.9 in 25-26. Percentage of pupils achieving grade 5 or above in English & Maths GCSE seems on a similar trajectory: 82.1% in 23-24, 66.7% in 24-25 and 62.4% in 25-26.

Would be very grateful for any views, especially from current parents, about what might be behind that decline and whether it's an actual trend or results just bumping around a bit from year to year? My other thought was that maybe other SE London schools have improved a lot over the last few years, so Kingsdale is not drawing such high-attaining group as it perhaps was previously?

@banhmi I couldn't see the last result you mention, the table on the .gov site shows the higher pass rate between two similar results (this could be me not finding the right results). Around the 65% seems from memory about right for when we first looked many years ago, so I wonder in the 82% one was just an unusually high anomaly, and most years are around the 65% range. I've not looked back, but I think it's possible on the .gov site.

I'm not aware of any specific changes that would affect results teacher or otherwise. I think you can also look at the results and break it down by prior attainment which might explain something, again I've not looked.

Screenshot didn't post above, hopefully it will now:

This is the data I've been looking at - the 25-26 data is not available in the compare schools part of the gov website so had to go to the raw data which is now available.

Also struggling to upload screenshot....

I'd be interested to see what it looks like for other schools and if there is a pattern for that 2025 cohort.

My DD was the 2025 GCSE cohort and iirc the first year where there was no 'covid compensation'. Grade boundaries were higher, and these were kids who had no SATS, spent almost the whole of Y7 and a good chunk of Y8 in lockdown and so missed the normal secondary transition and a lot of the groundwork you might get in normal Y6/Y7/Y8.